W.E.B. Griffin: Victory and Honor

“Mario,” Delgano said. “You go. I’ll stay here with the others. I’d like to keep an eye on the airplane.”

“Sí, mi coronel,” Peralta said.

“Colonel Delgano,” Mattingly said, “as you climb down that wobbling ladder, you may notice two half-tracks, each mounting four .50-caliber Browning machine guns. They will help you keep an eye on the Ciudad de Rosario .”

357 Roonstrasse, Zehlendorf Berlin, Germany 1335 20 May 1945

The convoy—a M-8 armored car, three jeeps, two three-quarter-ton trucks, and a trailing M-8—had been wending its way slowly through rubble when it suddenly came into a residential area that appeared just about unscathed.

Here and there, some of the large villas and apartment houses showed signs of damage, but most of the buildings were intact.

“Welcome to Zehlendorf,” Mattingly announced.

He was driving the first jeep, with Frade sitting beside him and Boltitz and von Wachtstein in the backseat.

“Why is this . . .” Clete wondered aloud.

“. . . not bombed into rubble?” Mattingly picked up. “I suppose for the same reason the I.G. Farben building still stands in Frankfurt. Somebody decided we were going to need it and told the Eighth Air Force to leave it alone.”

On a side street, they came to a very nice two-story house—as opposed to the preponderance of large, even huge, villas in the area—and stopped. An American flag was hanging limply from a flagpole over the door, and a jeep with two GIs and a pedestal-mounted .50-caliber Browning in it was sitting at the curb.

On the right side of the house, a gaunt man in his sixties was pushing a lawn mower over the small patch of grass that separated Admiral Canaris’s house from its much more impressive neighbor.

“That’s surreal,” Frade said, pointing at him. “That’s absolutely surreal!”

As everybody looked, the old man pushed the lawn mower out of sight around the rear of the house.

Tiny Dunwiddie came out the front door of the house and, sounding more like a master sergeant than an officer-equivalent civilian employee, bellowed the suggestion to his men that getting their asses out of goddamned armored cars and helping unload the three-quarter-ton trucks might be a wise thing to do.

Enrico Rodríguez, who had ridden in the third jeep, smiled approvingly as more than a half dozen Second Armored Division troopers erupted from the M-8s and began to carry cartons and crates from the trucks into the house.

“Come on, Siggie,” Boltitz said. “I’ll show you where to set up the 7.2 before Mattingly starts screaming like that at you.”

Stein looked at him, then said, “That’s right. You worked for Canaris, didn’t you? You’ve been here before?”

“Yes, I’ve been here before. The last time just before I became the naval attaché in Buenos Aires.”

When Clete, trailed by Enrico, went in the house, he smelled coffee and followed his nose into the kitchen. There Clete found another elderly German man, this one setting out cups and saucers to go with the coffee.

They nodded at each other.

When Dunwiddie walked into the kitchen a minute or so later, Frade saw him take a quick, if thorough, look at Enrico, and then smile at him.

Jesus, how do these guys recognize each other on sight?

“Master Sergeant Dunwiddie, Sergeant Major Rodríguez, retired,” Clete said.

Dunwiddie offered his hand.

“You always carry a riot gun, Sergeant Major?”

“Only when I think I may have to shoot somebody,” Enrico replied.

“Welcome to Berlin.”

“I have been here before, when my colonel was at the Kriegsschule,” Enrico said.

“No shit? Small world, isn’t it, Sergeant Major?”

“My name is Enrico.”

“Tiny,” Dunwiddie said, offering his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Enrico.”

“I hate to interrupt the mutual admiration society,” Clete said, “but who are these guys? This one and the one cutting the grass?”

Dunwiddie looked a little uncomfortable.

“Colonel, they knocked on the door just about as soon as I got here. They said they used to work here and would do anything that needed to be done in exchange for food.”

“So you put them to work?”

“I never minded shooting the bastards, but watching them starve to death is something else.”

“Just so they don’t turn out to be some of those Nazis Morgenthau is looking for,” Clete joked.

That possibility was immediately put to rest when Boltitz, also following his nose, walked into the kitchen and saw the man setting out coffee cups.

“Gott in Himmel!” Boltitz said. “Max!”

The man setting out the coffee cups popped to rigid attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän.”

“Why do I think they know each other, Dunwiddie?” Frade asked. “ Herr Kapitän , are you going to tell us what’s going on?”

“Max was the admiral’s chief bosun’s mate when he commanded the cruiser Schlesien, ” Boltitz said.

“And the other one?” Frade asked.

“What other one?”

“The one pushing the lawn mower,” Clete said, and pointed out the window.

Boltitz looked, then opened the kitchen door. He barked, “Egon!”

The elderly, poorly dressed old man in the backyard walked quickly—almost ran—to the kitchen door, popped to attention, and said, “Herr Kapitän!” as if he was having trouble using his voice.

“Stand at ease, the both of you,” Boltitz ordered. “This is Egon. He was Admiral Canaris’s chief of the boat when the admiral commanded U-201 in the First World War.”

“And what are they doing here?” Frade asked.

Boltitz looked at them and asked, “Well?”

“Herr Kapitän,” Egon said, “we have been keeping an eye on the house for Frau Admiral Canaris since the SS took the admiral away.”

“And the Frau Admiral?” Boltitz asked softly.

“The last word we have is that she is with friends in Westertede,” Max answered. “The Nazis took their house in Westertede, too. You have heard what they did to the admiral?”

Boltitz nodded. “How come they didn’t take you, too?” he asked.

“Every good chief petty officer knows when to be stupid, Herr Kapitän,” Egon said. “We told the SS we had heard nothing, seen nothing, knew nothing. After we had told them that fifty times, they put us in the Volkssturm.”

“The what?” Frade asked as Dunwiddie opened his mouth to ask the same question.

“As the Russians approached Berlin, every German male from sixteen years old who was not already in uniform was pressed into the Volkssturm,” Max said.

“There were boys as young as twelve,” Egon said. “And men even older than Max and me.”

“And?” Boltitz asked. “When the Soviets came?”

“We deserted,” Egon said. “We took three of the younger boys with us, and hid in the ruins of my apartment building until we heard the Americans had come. Then we came here to look after the house for the Frau Admiral.”

“And where are you living now?” Boltitz asked.

“In a ruin off Onkel-Tom Strasse.”

“What happened to the boys?” Frade asked.

“One of them managed to get home. His mother was still alive. The two other boys are waiting for us to return. Herr Dunwiddie said he would give us some rations. . . .”

“How did you learn what happened to the admiral?” Boltitz asked.

“Herr Kapitän,” Max said. “Egon and I served the admiral for most of our lives. We know how to find things out.”

“We—the U.S. Army—have buried Admiral Canaris with the honors appropriate to a senior officer,” Mattingly announced from behind Frade.